6.  The applicant was born in 1969 and lives in Nijmegen.
7.  The applicant came to the Netherlands on 2 January 1995 and applied for asylum. Her request was rejected, the final decision in this respect being taken by the Regional Court (arrondissementsrechtbank) of The Hague on 17 April 1997.
8.  Meanwhile, in 1996, the applicant had started a relationship with a Mr F.A., also of Somali origin. In 1998 Mr F.A. obtained Netherlands nationality. The applicant and Mr F.A. were married on 30 January 2001. They had three children, born on 2 November 2000, 17 April 2002 and 5 October 2004 respectively, who have Netherlands nationality.
9.  On 15 May 2001 the applicant requested a residence permit for the purpose of staying with her spouse, who was in full-time gainful employment. This request was denied by the Deputy Minister of Justice (Staatssecretaris van Justitie) on 15 October 2001 for the reason that the applicant did not hold the required provisional residence visa (machtiging tot voorlopig verblijf), which had to be applied for at a representation of the Netherlands in the country of origin or, if there was no such representation in the country of origin, at the representation situated closest to that country.
10.  The applicant filed an objection (bezwaar) against this decision, arguing that she ought to be exempted from the visa requirement as she was unable to return to Somalia or, given that there were no representations of the Netherlands in that country, to one of Somalia’s neighbouring countries. Not only would this contravene the rights of her Dutch children in the Netherlands, it was also realistically impossible for her to travel: as there was no functioning Somali Government, she could not obtain a travel document.
11.  After the Deputy Minister rejected her objection on 27 February 2002, the applicant appealed to the Regional Court of The Hague, sitting in Arnhem, which court upheld the appeal on 24 April 2003.
12.  The Minister for Immigration and Integration (Minister voor Vreemdelingenzaken en Integratie; the successor to the Deputy Minister of Justice) lodged an appeal against the Regional Court’s decision. In a decision of 18 July 2003, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State (Afdeling Bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State; herein after “the Division) found in favour of the Minister. The Division reiterated that the ratio of the visa requirement lay in preventing the national authorities, prior to a decision on a person’s request for admission having been taken, from being confronted with a fait accompli as a result of that person’s illegal presence in the Netherlands. If an alien, who had entered the Netherlands without a visa but with the intention of settling there, could be exempted from the visa requirement simply by asserting that it was impossible to return, this would have serious negative repercussions on the policy. Noting that family life had been started at a time when the applicant was not residing lawfully in the country, the Division further found that insisting on the visa requirement did not violate Article 8 of the Convention. It added that the impugned decision did not constitute a definite refusal of family life being exercised in the Netherlands, but merely an enforcement of legal requirements. Finally, it had not appeared that there were any objective impediments to family life being developed abroad. For these reasons, the Division quashed the decision of the Regional Court and rejected the appeal which the applicant had lodged with that latter court.
13.  On 4 November 2005 the respondent Government informed the Court that the applicant had been granted a residence permit for the purpose of asylum pursuant to a temporary “policy of protection for certain categories” (categoriaal beschermingsbeleid, see paragraph 14 below) adopted by the Minister on 24 June 2005 in respect of asylum seekers coming from certain parts of Somalia.